Could your clients benefit from more playful coaching?
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This article is a reprint of a?Coaching Research in Practice?(March, 2017). All ReciproCoaches receive complimentary limited-time access to each new issue (10 per year). For unlimited access to more than 10 years of Coaching Research in Practice archives, purchase a membership or a subscription.
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When searching the ReciproCoach English community, only 80 out of 1080 coaches describe their coaching style as?fun/playful. In contrast, double the number of coaches describe themselves as?results/performance oriented?and more than four times the number describe their style as?awareness building.
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Yet recent research suggests that using play and playfulness in coaching can not only enhance coaching outcomes, but that it also heightens the wellbeing of our clients.
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This issue of Coaching Research in Practice reviews this recent research and highlights the evidence-based links between play, playfulness and coaching. Finally, it makes some recommendations for incorporating play and playfulness into coaching sessions.
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COACHING RESEARCH:
In their 2017 paper,?Playfulness in adults: An examination of play and playfulness and their implications for coaching, Lockwood and O’Connor explore the nature and benefits of play and playfulness within the wider research to date and highlight some implications for coaching.
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Play has existed throughout human history, but it was not until the twentieth century that play began to be explored and gained attention outside of childhood. It was first linked to its utility in self-actualization and the “free expression of the authentic self” (p. 55). In particular, Maslow “listed playfulness as a ‘Being-Value’; one that reflects the way the world appears during a?peak-experience” (p. 55). This is similar to “Csikszentmihalyi’s description of what makes play enjoyable – intense focus using skills to meet goals and losing a sense of time and self” (p. 56). Given the widely recognized links between self-actualization and coaching, this suggests that playful coaching, or using play in coaching, could further enhance the self-actualizing benefits of coaching.
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Existing empirical research highlights numerous benefits of play and playfulness, including:
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Furthermore, play has been linked to:
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“Given that a primary role of the coach is to help foster novel and creative ways of perceiving situations and circumstances in clients, playfulness may well be an important construct for coaches to incorporate into their praxes” (p. 60).
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Lockwood and O’Connor highlight a scale for measuring playfulness in adults aged 65 and over, identifying that “playful older adults are psychologically upbeat, cognitively spontaneous, creative, humorous, whimsical, impish, and inclined to instigate unexpected or quirky events” (pp. 57-58). It is not hard to see how such playful qualities could enhance a coaching experience. In addition, Lockwood and Connor highlight recent coaching research that suggests “allowing the coachee to ‘see the lighter side of things’ may enable them to become flexible and open to changes and development” (p. 60), as well as coaching research that recommends that coaches “make it a priority to combine fun with work during the coaching engagement” (p. 60).
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IN PRACTICE:
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In light of the research presented above, “playfulness seems to be an important consideration not only for how coaches run a session and their use of playful attitudes for the coaching process, but also for how a coachee may benefit from seeking playful experiences and developing playful attitudes in the attainment of their goals and their broader experience more generally” (p. 61).
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However, before you jump to start making an intentional effort to play more during your coaching engagements, note that Lockwood and O’Connor repeatedly emphasize the importance of approaching play carefully to ensure that you establish a shared understanding of play with your coachee. Ensure that the kind of play suits their unique traits, conceptions of playfulness and “clarify their subjective, context-specific, and age-appropriate understanding of playfulness” (p. 61). This suggests that inquiring into play and playfulness during the intake and coaching agreement processes may be valuable.
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Furthermore, Lockwood and O’Connor make several suggestions for incorporating play into coaching to unlock both the client’s and coach’s creativity. Here are some of their examples of what to include (p. 60):
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As you are considering the degree to which your coaching engagements are playful (or not), you may also like to consider the degree to which you are utilising play to experience the above benefits yourself. You may find that in cultivating a greater sense of play in your own life and work, a natural overflow will occur in your coaching sessions.
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Reference:
Lockwood, R., & O’Connor, S. (2017). Playfulness in adults: An examination of play and playfulness and their implications for coaching.Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 10(1), 54-65, DOI:?10.1080/17521882.2016.1268636
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Translating coaching research into coaching practice,
Kerryn Griffiths (PhD –?The Process of Learning in Coaching) Global ReciproCoach Coordinator
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